CROSSING ASIA MINOR
Photograph by the Rev. Gabriel Bretocq
AN OPEN-AIR BARBER SHOP AT TARSUS
Like Antioch, Tarsus was renowned in the Middle Ages for the manufacture of silken
cloths embroidered with threads of gold and silver woven into the woof. To-day its chief
industry is cotton manufactures.
fast-falling darkness, and some hours
later, arrived in Adana.
IN ADANA, GATEWAY TO THE CILICIAN
PLAIN
Adana, one of the large towns of Asia
Minor, with a population of about 60,000,
derives its importance from its situation
as the gateway to the Cilician plain, that
great flat stretch of fertile land, possibly
the most productive in this part of the
world.
In Adana all the houses are flat-topped
and the roofs serve as the bedrooms for
the inhabitants. There is no late sleeping
in Adana, as I can testify, for a half min-
ute after the rising sun hits the sleeper
he is glad to exchange his place atop the
roof for one beneath.
There is a stone bridge in Adana, some
300 yards in length, one arch of which
dates from Justinian's time (see page
452).
But Adana is not an especially inter
esting town, and we were glad to get
away early one morning on the Bagdad
Railway, that iron bone on which Ger
many's jaws were once so firmly set.
Crossing the Cilician plain, the road
enters the foothills of the Taurus Moun
tains. With every foot of ascent the
grateful coolness increased. By midday
449